Eventually All The Holidays Will Be Ensemble Romantic Comedies Directed By Garry Marshall
Valentine's Day—the cinematic exercise in diffusion of responsibility strung together by Wil.i.am's musical dots—hasn't even destroyed comedy, romance, and America's patience for Queen Latifah in theaters yet, and it already has a sequel: New Year's Eve.
It's all part of Garry Marshall and New Line Cinema's plan to turn every holiday (and, when they run out of holidays, every day of the week) into a half-assed ensemble romantic comedy starring everyone in Hollywood so that, eventually, the movies become the holidays.
By 2030, the way we'll all celebrate Christmas or Wednesday is by watching Christmas Day or Wednesday, chuckling dispassionately at whatever now hopelessly irrelevant, holiday-or-day-of-the-week-related hijinks Ashton Kutcher performs, then going to work.
From Variety:
New Line's moving forward on "New Year's Eve," a spin-off from its upcoming ensemble comedy "Valentine's Day" with Garry Marshall expected to return as director.
Plans are to shoot "New Year's Eve" at the end of this year for release in late 2011 with "Valentine's Day" producers Mike Karz and Wayne Rice returning as well as screenwriter Katherine Fugate. Josie Rosen will exec produce and New Line execs Mike Disco and Sam Brown will oversee.
The story — with some of the same characters from "Valentine's Day" — would be set in New York City on New Year's Eve.
"Valentine's Day" will open Friday and has been showing respectable tracking, particularly among the young female demo. Cast includes Jessica Alba, Bradley Cooper, Anne Hathaway, Patrick Dempsey, Hector Elizondo, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Topher Grace, Ashton Kutcher, Taylor Lautner, George Lopez, Queen Latifah, Julia Roberts and Emma Roberts.
Sure, there's already a perfectly serviceable ensemble romantic comedy about people in New York City on New Year's Eve: 200 Cigarettes. But that movie was written in a time when movies had to be, you know, written, with a cohesive plot and everything. Valentine's Day proves that you don't need a plot and a couple of subplots to make a movie. All you need are a bunch of half-formed, holiday-related character notions, a Black-Eyed-Peas song, and a cast of stars so big they can only all fit on the poster in thumbnail-size images. Boom. That's your movie.